E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 6

τυράννοις—an ingenious point, because Sparta also opposed the tyranny.

διάφοροί ἐσμεν—i.e. the Alcmaeonid family, by which Pisistratus and Cylon had been opposed.

πᾶν τὸ ἐναντιούμενον—‘any power that opposes despotism is called democracy.’ This alludes to popular opinion at Athens, where the opponents of the tyrants were by tradition regarded as δημοτικοί, since Cleisthenes was the great προστάτης of the δῆμος. Ath. Pol. c. 20. Cf. Andoc. 2, 26, where the orator boasts that he is a democrat by descent on this very ground.

τῷ δυναστεύοντι is neut.

ἀπ᾽ ἐκείνου—i.e. owing to the fact that the family opposed the tyrants, and that the Athenians regarded that opposition, followed as it was by Cleisthenes’ ‘settlement of the democracy,’ as bestowing a hereditary connexion with the people.

ξυμπαρέμεινεν—i.e. has remained along with the traditional opposition to tyranny.

ἡ προστασία—i.e. since the days of Cleisthenes.

τὰ πολλά—with ἕπεσθαι. τοῖς παροῦσιν=‘the existing conditions.’